Bryan Peterson

Published in Shetland Life, August 2009 This month’s column is about news that will happen, rather than what is or was happening. A pre-emptive strike, if you will. In October 2008, Lord Carter, minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, embarked on a major research project dubbed Digital Britain. The government Continue Reading

My interest, nay passion for copyright is one of my guilty pleasures and was piqued after being ripped off by a record company as a teenage band member, which in turn compelled me to study Intellectual Property rights at university. Copyright is a slippery beast to define. Essentially, in the UK and most of Continue Reading

As I toyed with whether to write about blogs, podcasts or netiquette this month I noted that each subject is a portmanteau: a compound word combining two or more words and their meanings. “Blog” is a portmanteau of “web” and “log”, “podcast” is a portmanteau of “iPod” and “broadcast” and Continue Reading

The British National Party. I hesitate before I go on as this particular manifestation of political ideology is not one that I, as a bleeding hearted liberal, subscribe to in any way (and the BNP seems an incongruous use of ‘party‘, a word with such exultant connotations). But the BNP Continue Reading

I’ve been following the curious story of a woman in Japan who has been arrested for ‘virtual murder’ after she killed a character, her cyber husband, in an online game (to clarify, no real persons were harmed in the writing of this column). The game, “Maple Story”, like many others, Continue Reading

I’ve been an infrequent Shetlink dipper into-er over recent weeks due to commitments in the ‘real’ world, but on a recent sojourn through the forums one discussion in particular enticed my attention, entitled “The need for Shetlink” The inaugural salvo from the malcontent individual who initiated the discussion was “As Continue Reading

Shopping has always been one of my least preferred pursuits (due evolutionary reasons. I read in a journal that entering a shop triggers the male self preservatory ‘fight or flight’ response) and I didn’t pay much heed to recent discussions on the Shetlink forum on the subject of the ever Continue Reading

Shetlink has just celebrated its second birthday, and as it toddles into the terrible twos I’d like to thank the moderators who have baby sat the forum for the past 2 years. This merry band of moderators are the five volunteers responsible for keeping discussions on track, and have powers Continue Reading

Shetlanders are a fairly liberal bunch in my experience (liberal with both peerie and muckle Ls), but the anonymity of Internet forum opinion spoutery seems to bring out a bloodthirsty side in some Shetlink members. During recent discussions on criminality and the punishment of baddies, I was surprised to see Continue Reading